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COLUMBUS, Ohio — Kathryn Westbeld sat down and leaned against the back of her locker in the locker room of Nationwide Arena. A soft smile plastered to the senior forward’s face; she gently shook her head at no one in particular before gazing down at her hand, clad with Notre Dame’s signature playoff-green nail polish and

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COLUMBUS, Ohio — From junior forward Jessica Shepard’s layup to make the game 12-6 and her score to make it 24-16, 10 minutes and 36 seconds of basketball were played. Junior guard Marina Mabrey made a layup. Mabrey missed a layup. Junior guard Arike Ogunbowale missed a jumper. Mabrey missed a jumper. Ogunbowale missed another

Sports

COLUMBUS, Ohio — It couldn’t be confined to 40 minutes. In fact, it couldn’t be confined to one day. This had to finish in the early hours of Saturday morning. Irish fans may not have liked it, but the stolen inbounds pass to tie the game felt right. There needed to be more. An ending

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COLUMBUS, Ohio — My parents always say you only need to watch the last three minutes of any Notre Dame sporting event. That’s where it’s all decided. On Friday, you could’ve gotten away with watching the final second before the buzzer in overtime of Notre Dame’s 91-89 win over UConn. It would have told you

Sports

SPOKANE, Wash. — It had to start with junior forward Jessica Shepard, the player who made an instant impact after being granted eligibility on the day of Notre Dame’s first preseason game. Top-seeded Notre Dame’s leading scorer had to be senior forward Kathryn Westbeld, the one starter whose value never seemed to appear on box scores.

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SPOKANE, Wash. — One minute and 45 seconds into Notre Dame’s Sweet 16 clash with Texas A&M, junior guard Marina Mabrey attempted what would have been a spectacular play. She faked a pass to her fellow junior guard Arike Ogunbowale. The Aggies defenders bit on it. Then, without a glance towards the basket, she shot

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SPOKANE, Wash. — A victory after trailing by 13 points in the second quarter to a fourth-seeded Texas A&M team that features the best freshman in the nation, all with only seven available scholarship players, one of whom hasn’t practiced all week, is a pretty improbable comeback. Right? “We’ve been down in other games,” Irish

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It isn’t easy reaching the Sweet 16. However, for No. 1-seed Notre Dame, which is making its ninth-straight appearance in the NCAA tournament’s third round, a trip to the tournament regional is nothing short of an expectation. However, the road to the Spokane regional was not exactly a smooth one for the Irish (31-3, 15-1

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Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story was published online March 18. When the Irish went into the halftime locker room, it seemed as though the injuries had finally caught up to them. But when they came out of the locker room, something was different. And when they took the court for the third

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By halftime, No.1-seed Notre Dame had put 16-seed CSU Northridge (CSUN) away as expected. From the moment the Irish pulled away in the second quarter, what happened on the court barely mattered. A high-scoring tournament-opener for the Irish (30-3, 15-1 ACC), which finished 99-81, took a back seat to yet another Irish injury concern. The